


homebodies.

by orange_crushed



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, Future Fic, Heaven, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 10:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2147103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel says, "Maybe I broke it," and Dean thinks, <i>maybe you fixed it</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	homebodies.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MajorEnglishEsquire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/gifts).



Dean keeps falling in love. 

He doesn't mean to. He doesn't know what he means to do, exactly: his brain seems to let go of the details. He's stopped sweating the small stuff. The tags on his shirts don't itch anymore, he's never out of mustard. The sheets are always fresh except for when they aren't, except for when he wants to roll over and press his face into a pillowcase that smells like shampoo and sweat and him, like a nest, something all theirs. Dean keeps finding himself out on the roof just before dark, folded into a plastic Adirondack chair, watching the sun go behind the pines on his forty-second birthday, thinking about getting up for a beer and finding that somebody beat him to the punch, that Castiel is coming up the ladder with a cooler and the last piece of cake. Castiel stands there, blocking the view, and says, "I forgot a fork, again," and Dean laughs and laughs and the sun goes down and the stars come out and Castiel sits cross-legged on the roof, a spot of frosting on his cheek.

Dean keeps falling in love. Right then, with a handful of cake: other times, too. In the grocery store, or driving through the ugliest parts of Idaho. In a dingy motel room back before they were a thing, before they figured it out, he walks into the room and Dean forgets there was ever a before or an after, Dean drops like a final note on a player piano. Dean falls in love.

He doesn't know what it's like, for other people. If it's always like this: like the moment before the rollercoaster drops, no pressure and no pain, the wind against your cheeks, gravity relaxing, fear melting into wonder. He thought heaven would be like the movies, like last time. Playing placid old tunes around and around the carousel. It's different, or he's different. Castiel says, "Maybe I broke it," and Dean thinks, _maybe you fixed it_. The first time Castiel realized, the first time he woke up and knew where he was, he ran away into a memory Dean didn't recognize, something wild and dark and filled with stars, some memory that heaven couldn't quite render for their human eyes, a remnant from his old being. Castiel had been afraid: afraid of staying in heaven, and terrified of not staying. Of being a shadow of Dean's consciousness, one that could vanish.

"You think I'm, what," Dean says. "Projecting you? Okay, what number am I thinking of?"

"Thirty-three thousand," Castiel says, absurdly, because after forty years in human skin he still doesn't know the fucking rules.

"Five and a half," says Dean. 

"I'm me," Castiel says. He sounds bewildered. "I'm here, and I'm me."

"Of course you are."

"Dean," Castiel says, anxious, like someone's gonna overhear him. "I don't have a soul."

"Bullshit," Dean says. And heaven agrees, so here is Castiel's memory of spending four hours in a foreign-language bookstore in Vermont while Dean catnapped in the car. "This isn't my happy place," Dean says, and kisses his cheek. "Go wild." The bookshelves in heaven are deeper and higher, the light is always good enough to see by, if that's what you want. Dean is picking up some French.

Mostly, though, he's falling in love.

"Already?" Castiel asks. They're in the barn and he is telling Dean that good things do happen. "Back then?"

"No," Dean says. "Not yet." Castiel's arm is around his waist, solid and warm. Dean thinks: watches himself watch Castiel. "Maybe," he says. "You?" Castiel's wings spread across the barn, the shadows he doesn't have anymore, the things he lost so that he could be here, here always, with his arms around Dean's waist and Dean's heart plummeting into his knees for all eternity, love crashing in heavy and strong like the sea, a horizon he could never find the edge of. If heaven is the ocean Dean is a speck of light on the surface, Castiel a blue and ceaseless wave.

"Always," Castiel says, against the back of Dean's neck. 

It'll barely be long enough.

 

.


End file.
